CSS Shenandoah

Samuel Crooks was born in London, England around 1840 and migrated to Victoria, Australia sometime around 1854. Records reveal that he was sometimes listed as “Cook” and at other times as “Crook”; and was referred to as “Little Sam”. Upon arriving in Victoria, Samuel made his home in Williamstown, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria.      He was a little clean-shaven nautical looking individual who often hung out in front of the Williamstown Steamboat Jetty or Pier Hotel who arrived in Williamstown when it was only a village, and often spent short intervals at sea. Upon his learning of the arrival of a Confederate Cruiser, the CSS Shenandoah, in Port Phillip Bay, off Melbourne on January 25, 1865, Samuel was reported to have sold all his personal belongings and went aboard the CSS Shenandoah on a Friday night; February 17, 1865. He was not enlisted, however, until the ship was outside the legal limits of Australian waters. He then signed on as a member of the ships crew the following day, as a seaman, on February 18th, 1865, at a pay rate of $29.10; and since he couldn’t write, he simply placed his mark beside; his name. It was said that no crew was better fed, or better paid than that of the CSS Shenandoah.

After the surrender of the CSS Shenandoah on November 6, 1865, to British Captain Paynter, commanding her Majesty’s ship “Donegal, in Liverpool, England, Samuel returned to Australia and became a fisherman, living at his home in Waterman’s Row, or Stafford Place as it was later called, on Little Nelson Street, in Williamstown. Samuel was never married and died on a Thursday June 30, 1876 at 52 years of age. At twelve o’clock Crook was taken very ill with asthma, of which he had long suffered, and a Dr. Figg was sent for; but within a quarter of an hour after midnight it was found that he had passed away. Samuel Crooks was buried in public ground on 2nd July, 1876 in an unmarked mass grave, in the Williamstown Cemetery; in the Church of England section, Compartment M, Line 25, Grave 4; His cemetery reference number is W2438.

The Battle ensign of the CSS "Shenandoah" is the most unique of all the flags of the Confederate States of America, in that it was the ‘only’ Confederate flag to circumnavigate the Earth, and was the ‘last’ Confederate flag to be lowered by a combat unit in the Civil War; being lowered for the last time in Liverpool, England on November 6, 1865. The Battle flag of the CSS "Shenandoah" is on display at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia.

Alabama Claims Vol. 1, “Correspondence Concerning Claims Against Great Britain

   transmitted to the Senate of the United States in answer to the Resolutions of 

   December 4, and 10, 1867, and of May 27, 1868”, Washington; 1869

Amanda Peckham, Williamstown Library

Geoff Dougall, Williamsown Maritime Association

Eleanor S. Brockenbrough Library, Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia.

Samuel Crooks, Death Certificate

Sands and McDougall’s Directory, Victoria, 1875 & 1876

Susan Parsons, Client Services Manager, Altona Memorial Park

The Confederate soldier in the Civil War, 1861-1865, 1897

The Cruise of the Shenandoah, Captain William C. Whittle, CSN

Victoria BMD Records

Williamstown Advertiser, 1st July 1876

 Mass public grave site (green area in middle) at Williamstown Cemetery, Melbourne, where Samuel Crooks is buried .